The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (Development Essentials) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1856490440 ISBN 13: 9781856490443

Publisher: Zed Books, 1991

Synopsis

In this pioneering collection, some of the world’s most eminent critics of development review the key concepts of the development discourse in the post-war era.

Each essay examines one concept from a historical and anthropological point of view and highlights its particular bias. Exposing their historical obsolescence and intellectual sterility, the authors call for a bidding farewell to the whole Eurocentric development idea. This is urgently needed, they argue, in order to liberate people’s minds - in both North and South - for bold responses to the environmental and ethical challenges now confronting humanity.

These essays are an invitation to experts, grassroots movements and students of development to recognize the tainted glasses they put on whenever they participate in the development discourse.

About this title

About the Author

Wolfgang Sachs is a senior research fellow at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. He has long been active in the German and Italian green movements and is currently chairman of the board of Greenpeace in Germany. Amongst the various appointments he has held, he has been co-editor of the Society for International Development’s journal Development in Rome; Visiting Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Pennsylvania State University in the USA; and a Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Studies in Essen. His first book, For Love of the Automobile: Looking Back into the History of Our Desires was published by University of California Press in 1992. He also edited the immensely influential Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power which was published by Zed Books in the same year and has since been translated into numerous languages. His most recent book in English (coauthored), Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity, marks an important shift of agenda beyond critique to envisaging concrete alternatives and feasible processes of social transition. Wolfgang Sachs travels widely as a public speaker and university lecturer in Europe, North America and the South. His books published by Zed Books: The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (edited) (1992) Global Ecology: A Mew Arena of Political Conflict (edited) (1993) Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity (coauthored with Reinhard Loske and Manfred Linz) (1998)

Review

‘Short, pithy and well reasoned... There is something in each chapter to challenge, even assault, our dearest, most tightly held assumptions.’--Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society

‘Unique...the book is a scream of pain from the receiving end of a process experienced as cultural genocide.’ --Guardian

‘The Development Dictionary questions the whole basis for twentieth century development through a series of brilliantly written essays by leading writers from around the world.’ -- Resurgence

Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 1856490440
• ISBN 13: 9781856490443
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Sachs Wolfgang